Week 12: Diving into Inquiry

As I have continued with my inquiry and working through my doubts, I have discovered how much I am still learning. By focusing now on why things aren’t working and how I can change this idea I had. As I worked thought my data analysis, I have found out a lot about myself and behavior management.

I saw this plan and thought it would definitely work. I though just because I was individualizing something she would she the attention she wanted and her behavior would slowly get better. But as I quickly learned, not all children will have the same reaction to a change and to correcting behavior. 

I            believe that if I had maybe tried to focus just on her attitude and defiance or her on-task behavior, instead of both at the same time, I could have been more successful. By conquering one thing first, I believe it may have helped to focus in on one behavior and then the next.

This week my teacher made my inquiry student move her clip for reading a book during a whole-group lesson. She was not paying attention to what was being taught. Later in that day, she was doing the same thing so I gave her an orange sticker. She looked up at me and sighed aloud and slammed the book in her desk. She was still defiant to change but at least she was paying attention. This seemed ok until my teacher thought of something. She brought it to my attention that I should focus on a positive time she decided to read, and give her a positive sticker for it. This was because it was a big deal for her to be choosing to read on her own and we don’t want her to think it is a bad thing and punish her for reading. This made so much sense to me, and made time think that maybe a more positive only reward system may have worked better? Then I would only be drawing attention to her positive choices and behavior. I want to see if this will make any difference, or if this students really just needs something else to help her make better choices and change her behavior. Either way, I have finally realized that even if my inquiry is not successful, I am still learning through the process.

Week 11: Inquiry Doubts

            As I have worked further into my inquiry I am beginning to have some doubts. I know an inquiry does not always have to have an answer or solution, but I sometimes feel like they need to.

            This week I started my individualized behavior management plan. I started by pulling my inquiry student aside and explaining to her how it would work. I told her we were going to do something special just for her. How it would work was if she was off-task I would place an orange sticker on a small book on her desk. This would help from disrupting the entire class to fix her behavior. If she saw an orange sticker, she would know she was not making good choices and needed to change. If she was on task and doing all that she was supposed to, she would receive a green sticker. If she got 3 of either, she could move her clip up or down, accordingly.

            After explaining it to her. And receiving her first green, she seemed really excited about this special thing for her. This was all until and orange sticker was placed on her paper, followed by another. This only caused her to pout more. This is where my doubt comes in. I know I need to keep trying to see if it will eventually start working and that was maybe just the first orange that got her so upset. I am interested to see if her behavior will be affected at all by this plan, or if she may need something different to help her.

Week 10: What I've Noticed

As I went back and read through all of my blog posts, I found it quite interesting. I never really knew how I would feel about keeping a journal about practicum and blogging about it, but as I read back through my journal, I am enjoying reading what I wrote and recalling how I was feeling at that moment.

I noticed almost every journal to me is like a diary. Like Holly says, "Diaries are open ended: anything that can be verbalized can be included. At times the writer has a specific topic in mind to write about: at other times, thought flow unrestrictedly onto the page." I think by treating my journal like a diary, i enjoyed it more. I was able to verbalize all that I was thinking or feeling about a certain situation during practicum or could just use it as a reflection tool to go back over something. 

One thing I did notice about my journaling though was that I don't often use it to reflect on how it could have been different. I wish I had taken the time as I wrote each situation, to explain how it could have been different or changed. 

I believe this journaling for the past 9 weeks has allowed me to keep a running record of what has been going well, not so well, and just what is happening with practicum. It has allowed me to let out how I am feeling and to share my experiences. I have enjoyed journaling and the fact that I was able to choose how i wanted to write and express what I wanted to say.

Week 9: Inquiry

This week was an exciting week for my inquiry. As each day passes I have been observing a lot about what my inquiry student does and how she acts. But this week I began to actually try and talk to her about her actions and am excited to do even more.

            On Monday of this week, I was working with my students and tried to correct her on part of her work. I asked her to sit down and redo some of her work to make it neat and to try a little harder. She immediately shut down, would not make eye contact with me, and stuck her thumb in her mouth. As the day continued, my co-teaching partner and I were teaching a lesson and she was not on task. I asked her to put her book away and pay attention. She did this for a few seconds but as I walked away, she pulled it back out. I sat next to her and asked her to pay attention because we would have work to complete after this. She again, was defiant and did not even make eye contact. As the lesson went on, my co-teaching partner asked her to complete the worksheet we were doing with the class. When she did not do this, I sat down next to her and asked her to move her clip because she had been asked to do things by both of us and was not listening or following directions. She began to cry and make a scene. I took her into the hall and had a talk with her that we are trying to help her and need her help too. After discussing more, my mentor teacher helped me to get her to make eye contact and to respond to me talking to her. It was a hard process, but definitely a first step into figuring her out and how to help her.

            My mentor teacher has been great at helping with my inquiry process. She pulled my inquiry students aside this week and told her that it’s ok to be wrong and to realize that we are all there to help her. She reminded her that everyone makes mistakes and its ok to make some changes to help fix mistakes. I think this was very helpful in reinforcing the ideas I talked to her about.

            There was a big moment on Thursday when my inquiry student took my corrections and did what I asked. She completed a writing assignment and was eager to do her best work, even if that meant taking time to go through and change spelling mistakes or make it better. I moved her clip up to show her what a great job she did and how simple but beneficial taking time to accept corrections can be.

            My next step I want to try is to give her an individualized behavior chart on her desk. She is obviously very effected by the clip moving in class, but I want her to have her own that is there for her to see and realize what are good choices and what are bad choices.

Week 8: Field Trip and Inquiry

         My first field trip was quite an experience. I was ready for fun, and an easy day. But it was anything but easy. It was fun, but I was exhausted.

         On Thursday, we went to the University of Florida fishery and learned about many different types of fish. We got to see fish, feel fish, and at the end of the day even got to go fishing. I thought It was an overall great experience for the kids, but an exhausting one too.

            I also got to work a little more with my inquiry this week. It was a weird week since we just got back from spring break, but it was natural to just fall back into schedule with our class. My mentor teacher is being so helpful when it comes to my inquiry. She has helped me with building ideas and implementing these ideas in the classroom. She has helped me start to work with the behavior of my inquiry student, and to zero in on what she really need work and help on.

            As I learn more and more about my inquiry student, I know I will narrow down my field of study. I will focus on one subject to watch and work on with her and to hopefully improve her behavior during. I am excited to see how this will all work out and to see the changes I am hopeful to see in her.

Week 7: Social Studies Unit

This week we began teaching out social studies unit. It was a continued unit on black history month and was specifically about black history through the arts. I have never taught a unit, I have only taught single lessons on their own.

         We taught about three African American artists. On Monday we taught about Bill Robinson, Tuesday we taught about Langston Hughes, and we finished out unit with Duke Ellington. I enjoyed that we were able to connect all three of these people day-to-day and the kids could how us what they remembered from the previous lessons. I loved to watch the students listen to the artists’ songs or watch a video of them and be interested in what they produced.

One tricky thing to me was that we had to keep the lessons consistent to what our teacher did previously during her black history unit. For most of her lessons she taught about the person through a book and a video and then would create a chart encompassing the major ideas about the person. The students would then complete some kind of writing activity to show hat they learned. So we tried to keep this consistent, while still adding in the strategies we had.

Overall, I think the lessons went pretty well. I learned how important it was to find out students previous knowledge as well as be sure I know much about the person or topic we are teaching about. You do not want to teach the students things they already know, or they will be bored. So it is important to differentiate the instruction throughout. It was also important to know about the topic. The students were asking us a lot of specific details about the people. We were able to answer a lot of information but needed to look up some. After the first day, we were sure to bring in the information we found about each person so we could answer him or her to the best of out ability. Teaching a unit took a lot of perpetration but it was a great learning experience and know I can take all that I learned from it and create more units in the future.

Week 6: Lesson Study

When we began the lesson study I never knew how beneficial it would truly be. I knew it would be a great learning experience to teach in front of my peers and also observe them teach. I did not realize how much I would learn from the debriefing and rethinking our lesson though.

            Jordan and I taught the first week of our lesson study. After the lesson, we thought it went well, as did the rest of our team. When we got to the debriefing, it was a slow start and at first we all agreed that all went well. But, by the end of those 45 minutes, we had a whole new idea for our lesson. It would be the same topic and use a few of the same materials, but the activity and objective of our lesson had changed. None of us expected our lesson to change s much as it did. When it was taught for week 2 though, we saw how much better it was! We were all amazed!

            I have taught lessons before and reflected on them, but I have never been given the opportunity to teach a lesson, reflect, make changes, and then get to implement these changes in a class again. I think this is where the most learning takes place. We actually get to see if our new ideas and changes are for the better and how they affect student learning.

            From week two to week three, we did not have to make as many changes as we did the previous week, but we did still make a few improvements that I believe will help the flow of the lesson as well as help transitions in the lesson.

While reading I came across this statement, “In the face of evidence that we would fare better if we exercised more, we often assert that we simply don't have the time. Faced with the need to save for a rainy day, many of us declare that there simply is no margin in our budgets. Presented with evidence that student-focused teaching has multiple benefits for students and teachers, many teachers have a ready and substantial list of "yes, but …" statements.” (Tomlinson &Imbeau) This stood out to m because we may push things that take up time away, but just by taking 45 minutes together we completely transformed a lesson and transformed it to help students be more successful. To me, if it can help benefit the students, it is worth those 45 minutes.

            I am excited to see our lesson change week to week and to see how it turns out in the end. I know it will help us all grow and teachers and learners.

Week 5: Inquiry

           Last week I began thinking about behavior management techniques that could be used for whole class time and to help with talking and on task behavior. I then began to think more about something that could be done for one student in specific. I wonder if a star chart or some kind of behavior management technique could improve one student’s on task behavior.

            I have noticed this one student is constantly moving around and not paying attention. She is defiant when asked to stop doing something or to pay attention. I thought she was just an off-task student who pushed buttons, but then I noticed something strange. Ten minutes after I witnessed her moving around, talking during a lesson, being off-task, and not wanting to listen or do her work, she was working hard at a literacy station. This confused me. I began to wonder if she was only off-task in whole group lessons and could work better on her own? Or maybe it was just reading aloud in class that she did not like and this is what caused her to be so off task. I was really intrigued by this and plan to look more into it to try and see what can be done to help improve her behavior since I know she is capable of completing her work and following directions.

            I also wonder if some form of positive reinforcement will help improve her on task behavior and build her confidence in subjects she may loose attentiveness in because she is scared of participating or of failing. I had thought about some little star chart on her desk or a more specified behavior system than the clips used in the class. I just really want to get her to work to her full potential.

            While a lot of the reading suggested taking field notes while inquiring, I worry about time. I know I plan to jot down when I see her off task of why I think she may be off task, but I know I will not have time for everything. A bonus to working in the classroom is that “classrooms naturally generate a tremendous paper trial that captures much of the daily classroom activity.” (p. 81) I plan to start looking at her work as she completes it in different group settings, different times of the day, and in different subjects. I had never thought about that until reading, but I believe it could give me more insight onto what causes her behavior outbursts and how I can help.

Week 4: Lessons

The schedule in our class is really becoming more of a routine. This makes it easier on us as pre-interns and on the students as well. The students can start expecting that we will be teaching lessons to them. We are now teaching a lesson each day we are there. I really like this because I feel like I am doing more than observing and supporting, I am actually teaching. Our mentor teacher is also allowing us to teach a variety of subjects. In the past, majority of what we have taught was reading lessons, but we hardly ever got experience teaching other subjects. I want to become more confident in other subjects and know I can only do so by practicing.

            We have also been doing a lot of little extra things on our class for some of our own assignments. We have given a class survey, taught our first pathwise lesson plan, and began planning for our lesson study and for our unit study.

To prepare for our unit study, we needed to think of a way to collect our students’ background knowledge on what we were going to teach. Our unit will fall into black history month and is focusing on black history through the arts. We decided to use a survey to find out what our students’ already know on this topic. “Surveys can give students a space to share their thoughts and opinions about a teaching technique or strategy, a unit, or their knowledge about a particular subject matter.” (Dana & Yendol-Hoppey. p. 92).  We were sure to emphasize that it was okay if they did not know but that they should try their best and guess if they thought they had any idea what the answer could be. I noticed that it was hard for a lot of the students to leave an answer blank, especially if they noticed a classmate was writing and had an answer. When I started to see wandering eyes, I told them that I wanted to know what they knew, not what their neighbor knew and that it was not a grade. We ended up with a variety of answers and know now what we need to focus on as we tech our unit.

As we teach more lessons. The students are beginning to get more comfortable with us being their teachers. I have noticed that the students are often whispering to their neighbors while we teach though. If it is brought up to stop talking the students will stop, but there are one or two who will continue to push it and keep talking. This is one of my pet peeves because I know that they are not only distracting me from my teaching, but are also distracting their peers from learning. I wonder if a no talking chart, or some kind of reward system for not talking while the teaching is talking would encourage students to stay quiet throughout a lesson?

Week 3: Lessons

As we begin teaching more and more lessons in the classroom, I am beginning to get a little more comfortable. At first, the class could seem a little overwhelming. From day one we learned that there was a child with hearing loss, a child with vision loss, a child that will not speak, and a child with Down syndrome in our class. I have learned that it does not have to be so overwhelming when you can easily accommodate for all of these children. There are simple things like placement in the room or assignment changes that can help students to feel more comfortable or be successful in the class.

I learned this from not only the actions of my mentor teacher, but also the students in the class. They do not see any of the kids in the class as having disabilities, they are just other kids. No one questions the microphone, or if we need to pause to fix a hearing aide. No one asks why one student is allowed to sit on the ground if he cannot see the board. The students have come to accept the fact that one student may not always participate or use her words. And having a paraprofessional in the room with their best buddy is a fun thing for them. I love the innocence in children, and wonder where it went in adults. They all love each other and do not judge each other in any way, shape, or form. This was one of the key things I found in effective differentiation. Yes, there can be accommodations for learning styles and needs, but when “students learn to respect and support one another as learners” (Tomlinson & Imbea) that is when true differentiation is successful to me.

When it comes to lesson planning, it can be kind of hard as a pre-intern in a classroom. It is not our class so we do not know the plans ahead of time. We have been learning how to appropriately plan for situations like this and how to plan lessons our teacher asks us to teach. It can be tricky to do a “review” lesson when you did not ever see the introduction lesson and do not truly know what to go off of. After something like that happened, or we forgot a few things we were supposed to do in a lesson, we learned we needed to take more notes and have better communication with our mentor teacher about the lesson we were to teach to help it run smoothly. Things are starting to slowly fall in place and I know it is all part of the learning experience.

Controversy in the Classroom?

Something that caught my attention while reading this week was under passion 7 in The Reflective Educator’s Guide to Classroom Research. It’s something that I know can be touchy but that I have also wondered about. Are elementary aged students capable and mature enough to handle controversial issues or topics? And are they able to handle these kinds of discussions maturely?

            I know in my practicum placement last semester, we had a lot of children living in poverty. It is something that I have sadly become used to when placed in a number of Title I schools. I have always noticed that this is often hushed and never spoken about around the kids. Or even last semester with the election going on, there were plenty of lessons about the election but a lot of it was hushed as well. I know deep-rooted opinions in politics should be kept out of the classroom, but I feel the race of the kids made my previous teachers nervous in discussions about the elections and the history that goes along with race in politics.

            If things are appropriately handled and introduced by a teacher, I often think some controversial lessons may go over well with kids and they can handle these subjects. But then again, you never really know what to expect out of a child’s mouth. I still wonder, how can we teach these topics or issues to students without it being too much or causing a fight? A lot of the world’s issues are quite controversial. Yet we never touch on them in schools due to fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of what will happen if our innocent kids hear. I don’t necessarily have a solution for this, but would love to find a way to be able to cover some “controversial” topics in schools to not over shelter students and keep them informed or allow them to voice some opinions without causing a fight or disruption. 

            Another topic brought up in the same section of the book was about the achievement gap and often how many attempts to close the achievement gap are failed attempts. One part read, “our school storage areas are littered with the debris of unsuccessful attempts to address and remedy the problem…” (Dana & Yendel-Hoppey, p. 50.) I am kind of torn when it comes to this idea too. I feel we do so much to try and close the gap but we often shelter students from knowing where they fall in the achievement in the classroom. Then, no matter how much we try to no let them know, they often figure it out anyway. For example, I was working with a reading small group this week and one student said, “this is weird, we are all of the gifted kids in the same group. All the smartest in the class.” I tried to play it off like it was not so, but then questioned why I was doing so. Is it bad for students to know where they fall? Would knowing they were a little behind maybe give a student motivation to work a little harder? Students are labeled gifted and pulled out and this does not seem to affect them. I would hate to hurt a child’s feelings, but still wonder if a little motivation to try a little harder, read a little more, or just put a little extra in would help to motivate and close the achievement gap in classes.

Week 1: Teacher Inquiry

While reading this week, I was struck by one particular sentence. It read, “Given today’s political context, where much of the decision making and discussion regarding teachers occur outside the walls of the classroom, the time seems ripe to create a movement where teachers are armed with the tools of inquiry and committed to educational change.” (Dana, p. 5) I see teachers losing control of their own classrooms more and more each year. By this I don’t mean control in a behavior management way, but control as to what and how they will teach. Everyone is constantly saying something is not working in our schools, our schools need change, and that we are not matching to other countries standards. When I am in a classroom though, it is hard to imagine anything being able to change. Teachers can hardly alter things when they are handed rigid guidelines on how to do things and given so much to fit in, that it is hard to do anything extra. The coolest part about teacher inquiry to me is that it is something that a teacher can do and fit into their classroom schedule and can be something to begin moving towards that change.

            When I completed my inquiry last semester, I saw something not working in the class, and thought of a way to change it. It did not take me too much extra time to collect my research with the students, so I know it is doable. But I collected the research and data on the students to ultimately come up with a conclusion to my wonderings by implementing something and seeing if it helped to fix the problem or was a different solution necessary.

            Inquiry can make the teacher the “expert” in the classroom and allow the person who knows their best teaching styles and how their students learn best, to be the one to research and change, instead of and outside “expert” creating the professional development.  “Those dissatisfied with the traditional model of professional development suggest a need for new approaches that enhance professional growth and lead to real change.” (Dana. P. 7) The teacher themselves being that expert and creating their own professional development could be a major factor in the change in classrooms really becoming effective.

            In the readings it spoke about data-driven decision making and progress monitoring and I believe things like the FAIR tests are one way that teachers can include this in the teacher research they complete and could help to improve and change their classroom learning. This past week I got to view our classes FAIR test data and see where they all fall. The test is given 3 separate times throughout the year, kind of like a built in progress monitoring. The test also breaks the results down into specific areas of need for students. That kind of data could help teachers to plan different lessons to allow extra practice on certain areas for students to build their skills where they need to. But I wonder if teachers actually do this?

            I find inquiry so interesting. Last semester I constantly heard the word inquiry from our teachers or in our readings, but I never really knew what it was and how it was done, until I completed one myself. I believe that teacher inquiry can be one the best ways to really get the change that so many are pushing for in classrooms.

Using FAIR data to change lessons and activities to focus on the areas of need, could students’ scores improve more?